Despair Is Not an Option, So Here's What We Must Do by Bernie Sanders
Despair Is Not an Option, So Here's What We Must Do by Bernie Sanders
We have got to take on Trump and the oligarchs. And the best way to do that is to educate and organize, educate and organize.
I feel like he could've been a little more explicit, his advice is pretty generic.
Like c'mon Bernie, it's time to start publicly advocating for mutual aid, for strikes, for coops, for building structures that are outside of the political system. Give people some details to latch onto!
Prof. Timothy Snyder's books "On Tyranny" and "On Freedom" provide some ideas. The first one might be more relevant now that trump won, but second one talks about how oligarchs are stealing wealth from us and how they now use technology for their advantage including social media.
There are also interviews on YouTube with him.
Edit: apparently he also has a substack: https://snyder.substack.com/
It would certainly be good for the working class if Bernie took a more militant stance, but that hasn't been his game. He has postured his whole life as a radical that works within the system, not against it, which is why his victories have been relatively few compared to what they could have been. It's up to us to build a working class movement. I have an introductory Marxist reading list if you want to check something out, but the short answer is that workers need to organize, and Bernie won't advocate for something that goes against the present system.
I'm more interested in Anarchist solutions over authoritarian theory. Repeating the mistakes of the USSR, North Korea and the CCP is not my idea of a good outcome.
But you're right about Bernie.
Build your "structure outside the political system" and wait until the first discussion where someone wants to impact someone else. Boom, it's a political system again! Can't have a few hundred million people without various governments forming, de facto or explicit. And frankly the idea of a society without any kind of regulatory bodies is a nightmare.
By political system, I mean the current electoral system (to be clear, I advocate voting for the lesser evil/harm reduction).
Personally, I'd advocate a new form of horizontal, decentralized form of power instead of one big one that is easily corruptable.
There's nothing preventing regulatory bodies from being formed, nor the ability to have conflict resolution. If you're curious to see the sorta thing I'm imaging happening in reality, I'd recommend taking a look at Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war, and more currently, Rojava (though I don't fully agree with everything, I think its a big step in the right direction).
NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE as long as the super rich exist. No matter what small improvements are made, as long as they're around they'll find a way to fuck it up in order to enrich themselves.
Educate and Organize.
Thoughts and prayers.
Tl;Dr, became an enemy of the state instead